Smart Broadband - is is a risk?

Pete Briquette

Folks, just moved into a new house and i'm looking at broadband options. The previous ownes had a phoneline in place already so thats an option. Was thinking of going with Smart, works out about €40 a month inc line rental. Thing is I remember this company was in a spot of bother a few months back - cant remember the details but does anybody know their current situation? Are they likely to go belly up and if so where would that leave me?

Also if anybody has any other suggestions i'd appreciate them. Living in Donnycarney, have a phone line but no intention of using it to make calls, not looking for top of the range, just reliable, reasonably fast broadband... In terms of usage i'm not sure but looks like Smart are the only ones offering unlimited at a reasonable price with no line contention... Thanks...

Ardent

Been using Smart for almost 2 years now, never a bit of bother with them. Best broadband offering on the market by some distance - no caps, no contention. Go for it.

pizzahead77

If you can get Smart then yeah go for it. I'm on the 8Mb/s package (€50pm) and its great.

Not sure whether Smart is available in Donnycarney or not - the line checker is available on their homepage - www.smarttelecom.ie

There should hopefully be some financial stability for Smart as there has been some serious investment since the problems with the debt owed in Oct 2006.

Pete Briquette

Thanks for the replies - dont know the phone number for my own house (was defo used for eircom broadband before i moved in) but put my neighbours phone number into the line checker and looks like the Donnycarney area is served via the Coolock exchange. Gonna give them a shout tomorrow and get set up. Cheers...

skywalker

Yep Donnycarney is definitely covered for smart.

watty

if they go belly up then you'll likely be snapped up by eircom.

You don't think eircom would let all those lovely customers go to waste.

pizzahead77

Is the current phone line active? If it is you can dial 199000 to find out the existing number if you have a phone you can use.

If it isn't active, then you will need to phone eircom to get that done.

Then you will need to wait to receive the new account number before applying to Smart. You may be able to ring eircom again and bluff them into giving you the account number by saying you need it to sign up for eircom broadband or direct debit online.

It usually takes about 21 working days for Smart to connect you if everything goes to plan.

spurious

If everything does not go to plan and eircom start messing about re transferring, contact ComReg at the slightest delay.

Once you're with Smart you'll wonder why anyone in a position to get it doesn't. Pay the extra fiver for the extra speed. Whoosh!!

Liam Byrne

watty wrote:

if they go belly up then you'll likely be snapped up by eircom.

They don't even habe to go belly up for eircom to try that one!

On Smart for the past year and the only hassle I've had is when eircom stepped in to temporarily prevent me from receiving incoming calls last October.:mad:

Sad Professor

I just finished switching over to Smart yesterday. I'm a little disappointed as it seems my line isn't able for the full 4Mb downstream, instead I'm getting about 3.2Mb. So my hopes of upgrading to 6Mb have been squashed

But other than that the service seems good so far.

Skatedude

have you tried a few speed tests as not all sites will download at full speed,

Sad Professor

Skatedude wrote:

have you tried a few speed tests as not all sites will download at full speed,

I've tried several, including Smart's own. But the Aolynk router is only syncing at a little over 3Mb, sometimes a bit more.

Sir Oxman

Sad Prof, logon to Smarts Broadband support forum - they have very helpful Smart people there who may be able to sort you out.

http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2

EDIT:

I see you've been on there already ;-)
Best of luck with it

Sad Professor

Yeah, already been there, thanks, delah. Been quite impressed with their support so far. The forum is excellent and they seem pretty responsive to emails too.

I've done some tweaking with the router and I'm now getting about 3.4 Mbps which (provided it it remains stable) I'm happy with. Website loading seems a little snappier then ntl was, due to better routing I guess.

Anyway so far so good. At least the bills won't be as bad